Power and Ownership Structures Among German Companies∗ a Network Analysis of Financial Linkages

Power and Ownership Structures among German Companies∗ A Network Analysis of Financial Linkages Jochen Moebert and Patrick Tydecks June 21, 2007 Abstract The literature on ownership structures has made continual use of notions such as cross-holdings and pyramids which are closely related to the vastly increasing network literature. We propose to transfer successfully applied network methods such as network graphs, the MAN-classification scheme, and centrality concepts to the corporate control and corporate governance branch as well. Given these concepts and a unique data set containing 2784 companies we can identify the most powerful German companies and their characteristics. JEL Classification: G32, L14 Keywords: network, ownership structure, corporate control, power, financial linkages Contact details of the authors: Darmstadt University of Technology, Institute of Economics, Applied Economic Research and Microeconometrics, Marktplatz 15, Residenzschloss, D-64283 Darmstadt, Germany, [email protected] (Jochen Moebert) [email protected] (Patrick Tydecks) ∗For comments we are grateful to Horst Entorf, Tobias Klein, Alexander Ludwig, Martin Salm, and all other seminar participants at the University of Mannheim. We are also grateful to Ulrich Müller, Christoph Wachtel, Alexander Görbing, and Thorsten Jacoby of Hoppenstedt who provide the data base. Igor Goncharev from the ‘Monopolkommission’ explained us the way indirect relationships are calculated in the ‘Hauptgutachten’ published in biennial updates. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Philip Savage for the rectification of our first version. Jochen Möbert extends his thanks to Martin Hellwig, Christian Laux, and Holger Müller who introduced him into this topic during seminars and lectures. 1 I Introduction Germany’s corporate control system has at least three dimensions, i.e. the supervisory board, voting control at general assemblies (cf. Becht and Boehmer (2003)), and ownership stakes. 1 All three are closely related, but due to several specialities in German corporate law the impact of each dimension on the power of a company can be different. Due to ownership structures and these specialities cash flows and voting power are separated in many cases (cf. Bebchuk et al. (2000), among others). In this work we identify the most powerful companies with respect to ownership stakes. The identification is important since, in Germany in particular, powerful companies might be large shareholders and such blockholders can have both a beneficial and detrimental influence. 2 Large shareholders can misuse their power in takeover proposals. A blockholder of both the absorbing company and the acquiring company profits if a firm is sold below its value whereas minority shareholders of the acquired company are exploited. Such blockholder strategies which expropriate minority shareholders are often described by the term ‘tunneling’ in the corporate governance literature (cf. Bertrand et al. (2002)). Franks and Mayer (2001) analysed tunneling effects among German companies in 1990 and found little evidence that tunneling was an important issue. However, the misuse of tunneling effects are documented in several other cases. Attig et al. (2003) compile a data set on Canadian stock corporations and find evidence for the misuse of power which the ultimate owners of pyramids hold. They argue that ultimate owners maximize profits at the expense of minority shareholders and companies which have a high distance to the ultimate owners. Meoli et al. (2006) elaborate the Telecom Italia case where minority shareholders are expropriated by specific network and dual-class structures and Atanasov (2005) documents the malpractice of tunneling during the mass privatization in Bulgaria. There is also some evidence that tunneling effects played a role during the financial downturn in the Asian crisis (cf. Johnson et al. (2000), Lemmon and Lins (2003)). 3 Hence, given these cases and the globalised financial markets detrimental consequences of block ownership can be seen as an issue in Germany as well. In this article we exploit the large data sources available to get a micro-picture of a large part of the German corporate landscape which provides the basis for thorough investigations 2 in the future. To put into practice such a micro-macro perspective a network approach is a rational choice. This methodology offers both a local micro-perspective since each company and its shareholders can be analysed alone as well as offering a bird’s-eye macro-view due to the interconnectedness of all firms. Furthermore and particularly, the interaction between the micro and macro level can be investigated. Network science offers a variety of ideal tools for the development of real micro-based macroeconomics. The network perspective was already implicitly postulated in the literature on corporate control. La Porta et al. (1999) argued “For most countries, this [network perspective 4] is the only way to understand the relationship between ownership and control” 5 (cf. also Faccio and Lang (2002), Chapelle and Szafarz (2005), among others). Hence, we analyse a large network data set and thereby extend the literature on company networks. Our aim is the identification of the most powerful companies. We measure the power of companies by centrality concepts. For decades these statistics have been successfully applied in the social network literature. Therefore, our work is based on the company network literature and the vast corporate governance literature. In addition, to the identification of powerful companies our analysis shed some light on the ‘Deutschland AG’. Due to its particularities, the German case is intensively debated in the corporate governance literature. However, many statements are based on a small data base which concentrates especially on large companies such as listed stock corporations or the largest one hundred companies. 6 The German ownership structure called ‘Deutschland AG’ was (or still is) so isolated relative to Anglo-Saxon markets and interwoven that corporate control was implicitly exerted by the national companies themselves. Hence, legitimate ownership rights were disregarded and corporate control from outsiders, such as international shareholders as well as other stakeholders, was limited. This corporate network restrained non-national firms from gaining a foothold in the German company system and specific ownership structures among major companies hindered hostile takeovers. In recent years, it has been much discussed that the corporate ownership structure is subject to change in Germany. Due to the globalization and tax abatements on capital gains realized by sale, many blockholders diversified their investment portfolio by adding international companies 3 and cutting down national holdings. In particular, bank and insurance companies have changed their investment portfolios. Therefore, long-term relationships which often existed for decades, especially between banks and industrial companies, were broken. 7 These often mentioned breakups of bank-industry links being formed during the period of industrialisation (cf. Franks et al. (2005) and Fohlin (2005) who provide us with insights into the historical development of financial linkages in Germany), are the origin of statements such as “Is Deutschland AG kaputt?” 8 However, such analyses define the ‘Deutschland AG’ as a sub sample of all important German companies whereas all important ones might be of interest. Hence, the dissolution process observed may be nonexistent in the basic population. Our data set instead contains many more companies than other studies and may be more informative. Furthermore, the dissolution process observed among large national firms might be replaced by linkages to international connections. Becht and Röell(1999) have documented that companies from many countries in continental Europe have large voting blocks. Possibly, the dissolution among national firms is being replaced by new financial linkages among European corporations. 9 Before we start our network analysis, we will review important contributions to the company network literature in Section I. Subsequently, in Section II we describe our data set. In Section III the most central corporations are identified by the application of standard network concepts. Furthermore, in a subsection to Section III firm characteristics are used to explain the centrality vector in an econometric model. Hence, we can identify the industries and the firm characteristics which are related to a high or low centrality and Section IV concludes. For many readers the Appendix might also be of interest. Many network structures of large German companies are shown there. II Company Network Literature The network literature on the ‘Deutschland AG’ and financial interlocking of firms is neither very detailed nor exhaustive. However, there are some important contributions which are first steps towards a deeper understandings of corporate ownership structures. These articles mainly 4 written by social scientists are briefly reviewed here. To zero in on important contributions we review papers focused on the German company network. Moreover, we casually include contributions concerned with firm networks from other countries or with interlocking directorates in Germany. 10 A large network study with respect to size was performed by Kogut and Walker (2001), who used data from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. 11 They investigated how the German ownership network influences merger and acquisition

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